The Agreement
by 26Chapters
Summary: Katrina's dead, Ichabod wants to move on, and Abbie isn't too sure about it.


The car pulls up to the cabin slowly, if it were possible, she'd say her car is just as tired as she is. She's been tired before, not as much as this. In the three months that followed Katrina's death, she helped Ichabod as best as she could, giving in to all he wanted; working over overtime, being left alone at times, and going to baseball games. Baseball games, he especially liked, and she's always believed that it gave him reason to vent in a proper manner, by shouting insults, in a situation where it was perfectly acceptable. So she let him indulge in those games, catering to all his needs and wants whenever, with the hope that he would get better eventually, that the death of his wife wouldn't hurt so much anymore. And really, it hasn't been a burden for her, but today, tonight, she's beyond tired, so ready to dissolve that even if he wants her company, for once, she will not give in. Not tonight.

'So,' she turns the engine off, turning in her seat to face him, 'the next time we do something this tiring, let it be beneficial for both of us.'

For a moment, he only stares at her, but he finds his voice, 'I was under the impression that you heartily enjoyed that game.' It's wholly touching to see his face fall, she's not sure why it makes her want to stroke his cheek gently.

'I did,' she leans her head on the seat, 'It's the three hours there, and the three hours back drive that I never want to do again. Plus, I've been on my butt all day.' She completes the sentence with a small smile, the urge to stroke his cheek, surprisingly not leaving her. He looks so unsure (and she's sure it has nothing to do with Katrina) that it makes her melt. The very look of misdirection on him, tugs on silly places inside her.

'What?' she asks, closing her eyes. It feels very good to close her eyes this way. It comes to her that she can actually sleep in her car the way she is right now.

'Crane,' she opens her eyes when time has passed and he hasn't answered, 'What is it?'

Still, he only continues to look at her, making her a little nervous. Maybe he doesn't want to be alone.

'I need to have a talk with you,' he finally says.

'Oh,' she straightens, 'uh...okay.'

Now she's extremely nervous, because she doesn't know what he has on his mind. She doesn't mind helping him through this difficult time forever, to come to terms with Katrina's death, but at times, she wonders if she's doing enough to help him. Like now, her head is feeding her that she's being selfish for opting to satisfy herself rather than being with him.

'Abbie...' he leans more to her side in his seat, 'I...'

'Crane look,' she finds herself leaning towards him too, 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound like I didn't have fun. I did, I loved it, you have to know that.' The need to explain it is too overpowering, the last thing she wants is for him to think that being with him is a burden for her. That is why she's decided to keep out that she's really tired.

'It's not that,' he tells her, 'and...I know, I do know...but Abbie, things are not what they should be between us.'

If she thought she couldn't get anymore nervous than she is, she was wrong. Now, she's on the point of literally shaking in nervousness. There's something definitely up with him, and Abbie slaps herself mentally for not picking it up, she's been so ready to retire to her place that she didn't pay him any mind. He must think she doesn't care for him.

'I know,' she starts in haste, she wants to point out her wrongs, before he does, 'that sometimes I'm not very attentive to you, but it doesn't mean I don't care. You're important to me, and all I want is for you to be yourself again, even if I don't show it or act like it sometimes.' Now that she's said that, she sincerely hopes he doesn't agree with her, not in words anyway.

'What?' his brows draw together.

'You know,' she moves her head from side to side a little, an attempt to lighten the heaviness, 'I'm apologising for being a quarter douche sometimes.'

'Abigail,' his face takes on a serious look, 'you are speaking untruthful nonsense. You have done nothing, but made me feel normal. During all this time, you have been my source of confidence. You and you alone have kept me sane and feeling like I had purpose to live. What you have said is rubbish.'

Simply because he has said what he said with such sincerity, she allows her hand to reach out to him, coming to rest on his left cheek. For a moment, she only leaves her palm planted on his cheek, while fighting very hard within herself not to cry, but as she feels his face surrender into her touch, Abbie lightly feathers his cheek.

'Thank you for saying that,' she manages to get out, 'I've just been feeling like I didn't do my best with you, or I wasn't doing enough for you, and-'

'Marry me Abbie.' He interrupts her quietly, but firmly. At his words, she freezes, dropping her hand from his face.

She loves him, she's always loved him, long before Katrina died, she loved him, but she's never, not once gunned for the two of them to be together. There's always been Katrina, even when Katrina died, Abbie made herself believe (and accept) that she and Ichabod would never be more than what they were. In her head, she's always denied them the chance to be together, until it finally stuck, and she didn't think beyond being his friend or Witnessing partner.

'What?' she asks in the smallest voice she can.

'Marry me,' he repeats just as quietly as the first time, 'Abigail, I am proposing matrimony to you.'

'Why?' she stammers, as she feels his hands close around one of hers. She didn't see how her hand came to be between his.

'Why?' Ichabod repeats with a frown.

Abbie nods, 'Why do you want to marry me?' Of course he loves her, he's admitted it to her more than twice, but marriage?

'Why do you ask me that as though it's detestable that I do?' His voice is even, but she senses that her question has gone straight to the heart.

'No, no,' Abbie shakes her head, her hand moving in his, 'I'm...you and me...isn't it too soon? Katrina just died, and there's just...Did you think about it?' The man's face changes completely, and he lets go of her hand. Abbie doesn't mean to do any of this to him, but they've never spoken about them, and she's been sure that he understood the same way she did that they couldn't be. He'd once said to her that he would never accept that they couldn't ever be, but she assumed (when time had gone by) that he did finally accept it.

'I don't know whether to be offended for you or for myself,' he answers in a hard tone, 'That you would think I am acting impulsively, is incomprehensible to be. It shows that you really don't know me at all.'

'Crane...' she reaches for him, he pulls away from her touch, 'it's not like that.' She's done it now, she's managed to hurt him terribly.

'Leftenant,' he says shortly, 'I shall see you in the morning.' Before she can tell it's happening, he's opened the car door, and he's out and closing the door behind him softly. Abbie watches him walk away from the car, his steps big and fast. Just what she needs, on top of her exhaustion, she's created this between them too. She didn't mean to, but his marriage proposal just really threw her to the one side of the road. Katrina just died, yes it was three months ago and counting, but she just died, plus she never imagined they would be together, let alone married. The thought of marriage isn't the hard part for her, it's just she had no idea that they were transitioning in the three months, that all that time, he was perceiving them to be what she wasn't. She has to speak to him nonetheless, after all this is the man she loves, everything else aside, he is the man she loves, and nothing will change that. To rectify her mistake, Abbie unbuckles her seatbelt and is out of the car before Ichabod has had the chance to step into his home. Her first step on the solid ground reminds her just how exhausted she is, that she probably will have trouble waking up the next day. Quickly, as to not waste more time, she locks the car, and makes her way to the cabin in fast steps. She really hopes that they can work it all out, because she won't leave until they have, no matter how tired she might be.

'Crane?' she lightly pounds on the cabin door. It's no doubt on purpose that he's closed the door, that, and that it's dark (and he probably assumed she would be driving home anyway).

'Come on Crane,' she continues to rap on the door, 'Please open up. I really don't like standing out here all alone. It's creepy.' Despite the light the moon is emitting, she doesn't one bit like being outside the cabin while he's inside.

'Yes?' he only opens the door enough to poke his head through.

'Come on,' she pleads desperately, 'Let me in please.'

'Why?' he asks. She's hurt him, with her stupid question, she's damaged him, and she's distressed deeply about it.

'Crane, I'm sorry. Please let me in. I'll stand here all night if I have to, please don't make me do that, I'm pretty tired.' Ichabod relents, opening the door wider, 'You may enter.'

'Thank you.'

Abbie walks straight to the table, turning around so that she has a good view of him, 'Crane, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. If I could put you in my heart to have you know how sorry I am, I would, but I can't, so I'll just keep saying it until you accept it.' At first, he just closes the door in a slow fashion, making it seem like he hasn't heard a single thing she said to him.

'Crane?' At some point she will get tired, but for now, it's her fault that he's hurting, so she has to keep poking until he gives in. Again Ichabod makes as though he hasn't caught any of her words, it hurts Abbie somehow, she wants to cry all of a sudden. She starts to blink profusely in the hope that she won't fell tears coming from her eyes. In one second, Ichabod has rushed to be before her, his face very contorted in pain.

'Abbie,' he reaches for her arm, 'please do not cry.'

'I might,' she confesses, looking up into his face, 'I've hurt you, I can tell how badly I've hurt you just now, and I'm afraid I might not be able to fix it. So yes, I might just cry.'

'No,' he shakes his head, 'I beg you not to. I couldn't stand it if you cried. Please do not.' Abbie only manages to nod, and then she looks at his hand on her arm, for the life of her, she wants to pull it all around her that it covers her entire frame and she's tightly in his embrace.

'When someone is hurting and your sole wish is to make them happy despite your own battles, your own hell...when all you want is to make them feel better, to take away their pain...then you know you don't own yourself anymore. That happened a long time ago to me...Abigail, you cannot imagine how much I love you. The way I feel about you, cannot be contained in one part of me only, my heart cannot home all the love I have for you by itself.'

'I know,' she tells him in a whisper. She knows because that's the exact way she feels. 'I do know Crane.' Unable to hold herself anymore, she takes hold of his arm and pulls it around her, also doing the same thing with his other arm. Snugly in his arms, Abbie takes a step into him, leaving only a small amount of space between them.

'Then why,' he questions with a pained expression, 'do you ask why I want to marry you?'

'We've never been anything,' she explains, 'ever. And I never thought we would be...it's just, I don't know.'

'But surely that we love each other is enough reason to get married, without the other aspects. You know me, I know you, what should hold us back?'

Before she can stop herself, Abbie says, 'Katrina,' then closes her eyes.

'Katrina?'

'I feel like you'll never get over her death.'

'Abigail,' one of his hands comes from around her, to cup her chin, 'I have loved you even before Katrina died. Of course I would've preferred that she never died, but honestly, she did. But you are here. And I love you Abigail, I want you to be my wife, because all of me belongs to you.'

'I was afraid of sharing you with Katrina, because I'm too selfish a person.'

'I am not settling for you Abbie. I made my choice a long time ago. You aren't my second option.

'I know,' she admits quietly.

'You have to say it,' he smiles fondly, Abbie's eyes shine with tears.

'I do want to marry you. I would love to, because I love you.' It seems to Abbie that all her words aren't out of her moth when he pulls her into him firmly.

'Oh Abbie...'

Those two words are all it takes to get her crying, her arms aren't able to move, as she isn't sure she has strength other than for crying.

'Darling Abigail...'

She doesn't know how long they stay this way, just that she never wants to let go, especially as she feels him pull away. Once again, he cups her chin in his hand, making her look at him.

'I love you,' he whispers, but she reads it on his lips. Bending his head slowly, she knows he's leaning in for a kiss, but she puts her hand between them, her head moving from side to side.

'Mm-hmm,' she sounds in protest, 'No.' She's not rejecting him, and she can tell he knows, but it still earns her a frown from him.

'I want this to be right,' she allows her hand to cup his cheek, 'I want this to be perfect.'

'What exactly does that mean?'

'It means, we will wait. With everything, we will wait.'

'Everything?' his brows shoot up in disbelief.

'Except hugging. Or holding hands,' she tells him with a smile, absolutely loving the look on his face.

'Hugging, and holding hands...' he says it as though he is weighing the option.

'And cuddling,' she adds in quickly, 'we can definitely cuddle.'

'Can we sleep together?'

'If I'm super tired to go home, yes. Only then. Or if I fall asleep when we cuddle.'

'Can I kiss your hand?'

'Yes. Forehead, yes. Cheek, yes. Nothing else.'

'If I break the rules, you won't marry me?'

'Oh, I will...it'll just be a little less special the first time after we're married.'

Ichabod nods in consideration, winding his arm around her once more, 'I swear on all my love for you, that I will respect your wishes.'

'Good,' she rubs his cheek a little, 'because I could do with a little cuddling right now. I'm really tired.'

'As you wish,' he begins to pull her to the sofa. Abbie is pretty sure that when they cuddle, she will fall asleep, but that will be okay, because she's too tired to drive home now anyway.


End file.
